Globalization Meet Opens In Kenya

[Dover]

Globalization meet opens
in Kenya on weekend


NAIROBI: Tens of thousands of antiglobalization activists are expected to descend on Nairobi this weekend for the World Social Forum, billed by organizers as a chance to express mass opposition to a world dominated by capital.


..snip..

Among the 160,000 campaigners slated to arrive in the Kenyan capital are Zambia’s founding President Kenneth Kaunda, former UN High Commissioner for human rights Mary Robinson and Kenya’s 2004 Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Maathai.

But organizers are hoping the spotlight will fall mainly on the plight of ordinary people whose living standards have failed to improve as the economies of the West and emerging Asian powerhouses surge ahead.

The main aim is “to highlight the efforts of the people to resist social injustice and to fight for their voices to be heard,” World Social Forum spokesman Boniface Beti said.

The forum wants “to build a globalization where everyone has a voice and that provides equal rights to all the players to give the people the opportunity to explore alternatives to solve their problems..cont'd

http://www.manilatimes.net/national/2007/jan/19/yehey/world/20070119wor2.html

[BayCityProgressive]

1. Good for the protesters..

we will see none of it on TV of course..

[Megahurtz]

2. Just Say NO to Globalization!!!

Something that Dirty BFEE is fighting hard for.:grr:

[Robbien]

3. Africa is about the only continent anti-globalization protests

would be allowed to get this big.

Imagine a forum to figure out what to do about the global robber barons.

[pitohui]

4. a kenya visa is $50, 50 times 160,000 is well you do the math

that's good money coming into the country, i'd let em protest too

[Ghost Dog]

5. It's not so much a protest now as a way of proposing,

debating and even putting into practise social, environmental, economic alternatives, especially amongst 'grassroots' activists closer to the ground.

eg: this is from an Indymedia working-group in Nairobi for the WSF (and please follow links): http://www.indymedia.org/en/2007/01/878667.shtml

The World Economic Forum is a meeting of business and political leaders in Davos, Switzerland, which is converted into a military security zone during the meeting, making demonstrations and coverage by Independent Media nearly impossible. Participants at the World Economic Forum are overwhelming European or American and male; non-governmental organizations such as Friends of the Earth and Public Citizen have been excluded from meetings after raising concerns, and Greenpeace withdrew after finding the group uncooperative on issues such as climate change.

The World Social Forum is held in the southern hemisphere each year and largely made up of participants in social movements in response to the poverty, inequality, war, sexism, and state suppression generated by policies pushed by participants of the World Economic Forum, the World Trade Organization, and other forces of global capital.

Rallying around the call of "Another World Is Possible," the World Social Forum has placed social justice, gender equality, peace, and defense of the environment on the agenda of the world’s peoples. World Social Forums have collectively expanded the democratic spaces of those seeking concrete, progressive alternatives to imperialist globalization.

Regional Social Forums meet throughout the year to support this work. Everyone is invited to the US Social Forum, June 27 through July 1, 2007 in Atlanta Georgia and the Midwest Social Forum. Our local School for Designing a Society will be traveling to the US Social Forum this year.

There have also been various other local Social Forums, European level, national level

Historically Indymedia has had a close relationship with the World Social Forum (WSF), as the Indymedia network of volunteer-run Independent Media Centers grew out of the same movement against neo-liberalism and for global justice that led to the WSF. The Indymedia network now includes over 170 Independent Media Centers on every continent but Antarctica. The Indymedia network has helped spread the world from the WSF from 2002 onwards, ensuring that an Independent Media Center is available at each WSF to allow diverse voices from the Forum to be heard.

This World Social Forum IMC will be focused on not only on reporting on the WSF, but on skill-sharing and solidarity between Indymedia and global justice activists. There will be workshops on web distribution of stories, audio production, radio station building, print publishing, silk screening, and consensus based decision-making. Another goal is to consolidate the energy of local activists in Kenya to resume and energize the formation of a permanent IMC in Kenya.

"Independent Media in Africa continues to be a challenge. While large parts of the populations in Africa still do not have access to democratic and independent media, they are lacking specifically access to more interactive media like the internet that enable not only to receive news but also to produce news globally. Thats why local, private and pirate radio stations or a free radio action and even small-scale newspapers form a strong force of independent media in many African countries. Devoted media activists maintain them. The WSF gives a great opportunity to continue networking between these local activists as much as discuss chances and possibilities to increase the use of the internet for networking and eventually producing more African news for within and beyond Africa," says Fabian, one of the organizers on the ground in Narobi. And so, trying to create free software alternatives of producing low-band web radio .

Indymedia organizers are working to bring delegates from Kenya, Mauritius, Cameroon, South Africa, Uganda, Nigeria and Mali to the World Social Forum Indymedia Convergence.

/...

[Ghost Dog]

7. Related: Swiss lock down ski resort ahead of WEF

http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=reutersEdge&storyID=2007-01-19T155401Z_01_HO956311_RTRUKOC_0_US-DAVOS-PREVIEW.xml

ZURICH (Reuters) - The Swiss air force began patrolling a no-fly zone over southeast Switzerland on Friday, as up to 5,000 troops geared up to guard the world's movers and shakers meeting in Davos next week.

About 400 soldiers were mobilised last week to help local authorities, while police were also put on standby in other parts of Switzerland and in neighboring countries like Germany.

The streets of Davos have been quiet at recent World Economic Forum (WEF) meetings, once a magnet for anti-globalization protests, as police have sealed off the resort from potential troublemakers. As a result, protest organizers are even encouraging people to snowboard into town to avoid checkpoints, or slog across the icy Strelapass in snowshoes or cross-country skis.

...

Swiss authorities are keen to keep adverse publicity to a minimum and want coverage focused on the discussions taking place in Davos's congress center, rather than events on the streets outside.

Protecting the 2,400-odd businessmen and politicians -- this year including British Prime Minister Tony Blair and German Chancellor Angela Merkel -- at the annual WEF meeting costs some 8 million Swiss francs ($6.4 million).

/...

[goodhue]

6. the World Social Forum rocks

wish i were there